Daily Inspiration Quote by Alexander Payne

There is something deliciously period-specific about Alexander Payne singling out Peter Jennings as “the only decent one of the big three.” It’s a line that sounds casual, even tossed off, but it’s doing the cultural work of the late-20th-century media landscape: treating the network anchors not just as journalists, but as moral weather vanes. “Decent” is the operative word. Payne isn’t praising Jennings for brilliance or bravery; he’s grading him on character, on vibe, on an intangible trustworthiness that television asked viewers to confuse with truth.

The “big three” (Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw) were the last anchors to function like national referees, narrating wars, elections, and scandals to a mostly shared audience. Payne, a filmmaker associated with observational comedy and a keen eye for American self-mythology, is implicitly critiquing that whole arrangement: three men as gatekeepers of reality, with viewers reduced to choosing which paternal figure feels least compromised.

The subtext is less about Jennings personally than about media performance. Jennings, the Canadian outsider with a controlled, cosmopolitan delivery, could read as less entangled in American macho posturing or Beltway chumminess. Calling him “decent” hints at suspicion toward the others: that authority has been contaminated by ambition, ego, or institutional rot.

It also foreshadows the collapse of that monoculture. Today, the idea of “the big three” sounds quaint; Payne’s line captures the moment right before trust fragmented into brands, tribes, and algorithms.